Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn Shines

A stunning new photo of Saturn’s north pole spotlights the planet’s bizarre hexagon-shaped vortex and beautiful bands of swirling winds.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this dramatic view on Sept. 5, as the probe flew 890,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) above the planet. The image, which NASA released Monday (Nov. 14), looks toward the sunlit side of Saturn’s rings.

This unique weather system on Saturn was first spotted by NASA’s Voyager mission in the early 1980s. In addition to the strange hexagonal vortex, the planet boasts thick, beautiful bands, which are created by superfast winds in the upper atmosphere.

“Each latitudinal band represents air flowing at different speeds, and clouds at different heights, compared to neighboring bands,” NASA officials said in the statement. “Where they meet and flow past each other, the bands’ interactions produce many eddies and swirls.”

The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, providing high-resolution images of the ringed planet. The probe is in the last year of its mission and will end its life with an intentional dive into the planet’s atmosphere in September 2017.